From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [293]
“But why the hell not, man!” Lt Culpepper exploded. “And besides, you’re not doing it for me. I explained it all to you, didnt I? The whole key of my case lies in your pleading guilty. I cant do a thing for you if you dont. It’ll be just another run-of-the-mill court martial, no different from ten thousand others. Neither one of us will get any recognition out of it.”
“I cant help it,” Prew said. “I aint guilty. And I aint going to plead guilty. Not even if it would mean a full acquittal. I’m sorry, but thats the way it is.”
“My god, man!” Lt Culpepper cried exasperatedly. “What has that got to do with it? Nobody gives a damn whether you’re guilty or not. The court doesnt care. Its all governed by the legal code, and the human relations beneath it that run it. No court could possibly give a soldier the maximum just for feeling his oats and getting drunk and in trouble, not if he admits it. Why, getting drunk and running wild is not only a soldier’s nature, its almost his sacred duty; just like the way Ernest Hemingway said that syph was the occupational disease of bullfighters and soldiers. Its the same damn thing.”
“Did you ever have it, Lootenant?”
“Have what?”
“The syph.”
“Who? Me? Hell, no. Whats that got to do with it?”
“Well, I’ve never had it either,” Prew said grimly. “But I’ve had the clap. And if syph and clap are the occupational diseases of soldiers, then I’ll get out and be a garage mechanic.
“Besides,” he said, “I aint begging none of them for nothing. If they want to railroad this case like that, they can do it. I wont brown-nose with none of them, even if they are proud of their men getting drunk. I aint never asked nobody for nothing, and I aint starting now, Lootenant.”
Lt Culpepper scratched his head with his Parker 51 pen and then put it back in his pocket. He took out his Parker 51 pencil and got a piece of blank paper out of the briefcase and began to draw doodles on it with the pencil.
“Okay, but you think it over. I’m sure you’ll come around when you see how important it is. Why, Prewitt, do you realize we might establish a whole new legal procedure for military courts? Think what it might mean to whole future generations of soldiers.”
“I’ve thought about it all I need to,” Prew said. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, after you’ve worked so hard on it, Lootenant. But I aint pleading guilty,” he said, with finality.
“You hit the man, didnt you?” Lt Culpepper cried. “My god, man!”
“Sure I hit him. And do it again, too.”
“If you hit him, you are guilty. Thats open and shut. Why try to hide the truth?”
“I wont plead guilty, Lootenant,” Prew said.
“Jesus Christ!” Lt Culpepper said. “I never saw such a stubborn bastard. You’ll deserve all you get. You got no more gratitude than a fish. If you dont give a damn for yourself, you might at least think of me. I didn’t ask to be appointed your defense counsel.”
“I know it,” Prew said. “And I’m sorry about it.” He did not look up from his shoes, but his face was still set just as stolidly as ever.
Lt Culpepper sighed. He put his Parker 51 pencil back in his pocket with his Parker 51 pen and put the confession paper and the doodle paper back in the briefcase and closed the zipper and stood up. “All right,” he said. “Just the same, you think it over. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Prew got up from the bunk with him. Lt Culpepper shook his hand.
“Chin up,” he said.
Prew watched him hustle back out through the line of bars with the open door of bars, past the guard corporal who saluted, back into the other world with his new yellow briefcase with the zipper on three of its sides. Then Prew got the old deck of cards out from under the pillow.
He had played five games and come within an ace of running one of them out when The Warden came into the office on the other side of the line of bars with the open door of bars. The Warden was carrying the clean suit of fatigues the OD had requested from the Company to replace the dirty ones he said were beginning to stink so bad it was hurting the morale of the guard, although this was an exaggeration.
“I have to have a goddam permit to give this monstrous criminal his goddam clean clothes?” The Warden said to the guard corporal, “or can I do